Oktalist, even at 500' I doubt he "suddenly" saw three red and that in the minutes prior to that point he had been stabilized on the GS. Why anybody would be flying on auto-throttle as late as short final escapes me since there are any number of things that can occur that would require an immediate response not possible with the autopilot (like discovering after you were gawking at the topless sailorette that you were far too low and slow) and yes, when the engines are at or close to flight idle that spool-up takes an eternity in an environment where seconds count. It ain't like cracking the throttle on that IO-540 in front of you and getting instant torque. That's why turbine pilots must always be well ahead of the equipment if they are to be able to stabilize the flight path, and generally flight energy decisions and adjustments have to be made at least ten seconds in advance.

You see, that's why I know this is all BS.... that plane was not stabilized on the glide path with everything hanging out because if it was the engines would have been already cranking at a good clip. No, the engines were probably at idle because he was porpoising the GS... indeed perhaps due to fixation on the PAPI ("chasing the needles") or maybe he was looking at something else. The two things he was definitely not looking at were airspeed and power. When the report is released the FDR and CVR will tell us "the rrrrrrrrrrrrest of the story", and it will not be pretty. I had to laugh when Asiana announced that they had grounded their 777 fleet for inspection, when they really should have grounded their pilot roster for re-examination.

After the crash there were quite a few diversions to the San Jose airport nearby. I was really impressed by the way the San Jose approach controller handled the increased traffic load.

Specifically, I listened to the "KSJC NORCAL Approach #1" feed from around 1840Z-1915Z. Everything was business as usual at San Jose, up until around 1840Z when the diverted aircraft began to arrive, many of them at min fuel.

Great job by the KSJC controllers that day.

This I can attest to that I believe the areas are physically next to each other at the TRACON. From my tour there, the room is set up like a hub and spokes on a bicycle; each spoke is an area I can't remember which areas are which but I do remember seeing the areas for SFO, OAK, and SJC all being adjacent to eachother (read: backs to eachother), so they could turn around and yell out something if an incident happened. The ones that were on the far side comprised of the SMF, SCK, APA, and RNO areas.

Again, my memory is dodgy on this, as it was at least 5 years since that tour.

Three minutes before impact, just as they are putting the gear down, there is discussion that they "seem too high" and the PIC says "I will descend more", then a minute and a half later they increase flaps from five to thirty and about half a minute later, 52 seconds before impact, somebody in the cockpit was warning about the sink rate. Thirty seconds before impact somebody said they were on glide path, then ten seconds later somebody said they were low, meaning they flew right through it. Now we know that the morons (I am now pluralizing it because there were three of them) were flying on auto-throttle, and anybody who was making all those configuration changes on short final while diving back onto the G/S without instinctively having his hands on the throttles had to have been been away from manual flying for a very long time. These guys could never have performed a circling visual approach or having their base called into a short final, or any flight regime requiring "seat of the pants" flying, including landed a 172. From that article, "Boeing's chief of flight deck engineering, Bob Myers, testified that the company designed the automated system to aid — not replace — the pilot. If there's a surprise, he said, 'we expect them to back off on the automation' and rely on their basic skills." Amen.

I had summed up that post saying that rather than grounding their 777 fleet Asiana should have grounded their pilot roster, a viewpoint that an attorney involved shares: "This pilot should never have taken off," said attorney Ilyas Akbari, whose firm represents 14 of the passengers. "The fact that the pilot was stressed and nervous is a testament to the inadequate training he received, and those responsible for his training and for certifying his competency bear some of the culpability."

Of course mine is just an opinion based upon few facts, a number of assumptions and much experience, so we all await the final NTSB report.

It is more likely that the auto throttle disengaged because the flight path was out of limits, especially since in the final minute I saw no mention of power settings or airspeed, or it was still engaged but at idle because they were diving through the glide slope. Whether it was engaged or not is somewhat immaterial because they believed and behaved as if it was, and that was their primary mistake. The FDR will confirm all this stuff.

Even in the unlikely event I had been on short approach believing the auto throttle to be engaged, I still would have had my hand on the throttles. The only way I might not would be if it were zero-zero and I was relying completely upon CAT III auto-land... and even then I would be on the throttles in case something scary suddenly filled the windscreen.